Boris Kagarlitsky: Change is inevitable

First published at Novaya Gazeta. 

[Editor’s note: Writing from the Russian penal colony where he is currently confined, anti-war Marxist Boris Kagarlitsky sent the following letter to the October 8 online conference “Boris Kagarlitsky and the Challenges of the Left Today”, held in honour of him and his work. In it, Kagarlitsky discusses the global crisis of our time, ongoing wars, the economy and the collapse of the familiar world order in Western Europe, where the far right is gaining popularity.]

Despite some obvious differences, it appears to me that there are certain similarities between current events in Russia and Israel. We know that the Israeli government needs the war to last as long as possible, both as its political survival is contingent on it, and due the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would face indictment should it collapse.

The end of the war would mean both the end of the current ruling coalition and, more generally, the start of serious political change that the current government simply cannot allow to happen. As a result, it has found it easier to start a new war in Lebanon than to end the old one. Conservative politics have turned into the politics of war.

The situation in Russia is similar in many respects. Paradoxically, it no longer matters how the hostilities end. After three years, the situation is such that any end to the so-called “special military operation” will mean the start of wide-ranging political change in the country. I think the same may apply to Ukraine. One way or another, the conservative faction in the country’s leadership now has a single goal: to maintain the current state of affairs for as long as possible.

The only point now of the special operation is not victory over Ukraine, but dragging the operation out for its own sake, ideally for decades. Even in its early days, pro-Kremlin political analysts said that Russia needed 10 years of war, akin to the decade of stability Stolypin dreamed of.

The trouble is that is not the way things work. And nor will they in future. Now, even endlessly replaying the same situation still brings change by creating new problems. Opinion polls show that the mood is changing: people are tired. However, the authorities are much more tired and the economy is tired too.

You can hold on to a position for a long time, but you then have nowhere to go. There are no prospects, not even for the elite. So a “party of peace” must inevitably form within the structures of power.

The paradox is that the “party of war” cannot leave things as they are. It needs to keep up momentum in order to maintain control at every moment of the war. Look at Russia’s budget. If we assume that this is the budget of a state waging a full-scale war, then the budget is actually very reasonable. But if this is the budget of a state where peace and prosperity reign, and this is merely a special operation somewhere on the western outskirts, then the budget is catastrophic. This is too “peace-time” a budget to carry out general mobilisation. In other words, by maintaining the status quo, the system acquires an increasing number of contradictions, and risks getting tangled up in them.

I have no doubt that a “party of peace” will eventually be forced to move in and take control of the situation. The only question is how long will it take, and how many more people will die and suffer on both sides before they seriously look for a peaceful solution?

But that’s not the most important consideration. The most important consideration is that a peaceful solution inevitably brings with it immediate — not eventual — radical political change. The current configuration of power leaves no other option.

Of course, the liberal public, “rational bureaucracy” and most of society agree and want to return to the good old days, when there was no Covid-19, no special operation and no war in Israel, the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. Bring back 2019!

Alas, and as obvious as such a consensus might be, it is impossible. Not in Russia, nor Ukraine, nor Israel, nor Western Europe, nor the US. The political and social frameworks have changed. And the global economy finds itself in the same impasse as global politics. The neoliberal project ran its course between 2008 and the 2010s.

However, since the mid-2010s, some within the Western elite have essentially been doing the same thing Israel and Russia are now doing at the military and political level, namely trying to preserve and reproduce at all costs a system that no longer works. The effort comes at ever greater expense, requires ever more resources, and again brings with it insoluble problems and contradictions.

It is why the far right is having such success in Europe and America. These are the forces that advocate for the preservation of the system, but from an anti-system ideological position. In a sense, this is the last political recourse for conservatism, but it is extremely dangerous. So change is inevitable.

We may not know when or how rapidly that change will come, but our main problem is that in all the years of waiting we have become unable to, and got out of the habit of, taking action. This is a good time for the left, but is the left up to the challenges of the time? And could it be that at the very moment when ample opportunities open up before us, we will be confused and helpless?

Russian history has witnessed time and again the sudden impact of freedom, landing like a natural disaster. Of course, what I say above does not just apply to the left. We are all so used to being helpless victims or embittered critics that we mind find any other role inorganic and incomprehensible.

We will have to re-learn. The first step is to end the culture of pessimism that has dominated for many years among those who see themselves as guardians of advanced democratic values, both in the left-leaning and the liberal sense. Pessimism and fatalistic humility are incompatible with accountability and a readiness to be more than spectators, to be participants in and agents of social change. I can only quote Hamlet: “The readiness is all”.